▶ 3.2 Executable Files and Malware
When we look in our directories at the files, we distinguish between two file types:
Data files, like a word-processing file containing an essay, a spreadsheet, or a configuration file used by a program or the operating system.
Executable files that contain application programs or other programs.
An executable file contains instructions to be executed by the CPU. When we load those instructions into a control section in RAM, the CPU runs that program. This was described in Section 2.1.2. The program’s instructions must be organized and formatted in a special “executable” file format. Although the format varies with different operating systems, they are all similar to what we see in FIGURE 3.5.
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